The Island of Doctor Moreau

How to play — a parser adventure for the Tronsoft Interactive Fiction Engine

How to begin

Launch the game from the Tronsoft Games library. The story opens on a cover screen with two optional settings — story narration (text-to-speech) and island ambience (procedural sound). Both are optional and the story can be completed in full with either or both switched off. Press GO ASHORE to begin.

You are Edward Prendick, eleven days adrift in an open boat. Your first task is to be seen by the schooner on the horizon. If you are ever unsure what to do next, press HINT.

Controls

You may type commands, click buttons, or mix the two freely. Nothing in the story requires typing.

Command line — type a command and press Enter.
ACTIONS row — choose a verb; the CONTEXT row then fills with the legal targets for that verb in this room, and clicking one performs the command.
DIRECTIONS row — shows only the exits that exist here.
SYSTEM row and footer — journal, quests, stats, hint, save manager, transcript, theme, settings and accessibility.
Side panels — exits, location, quest log, character stats, achievements, world chart, inventory, journal and conversation history, all updating every turn.

Command reference

Purpose	Commands
Movement	`NORTH` `SOUTH` `EAST` `WEST` `UP` `DOWN` `IN` `OUT` — or `N S E W U D`, or `GO NORTH`
Looking	`LOOK`, `EXAMINE thing`, `SEARCH thing`, `READ thing`
Handling	`TAKE thing`, `DROP thing`, `USE thing`, `OPEN thing`, `CLOSE thing`, `INVENTORY`
People	`TALK person` — ask again for the next thing they have to say; what they say changes as the story moves
Story verbs	`SHOOT thing`, `SAY LAW`, `DRINK thing`, `CLIMB`, `LISTEN`, `SWIM`, `FOLLOW`
Information	`JOURNAL`, `QUESTS`, `ACHIEVEMENTS`, `STATS`, `SCORE`, `ABOUT`, `HELP`
System	`HINT`, `SAVE name`, `RESTORE name`, `TRANSCRIPT`, `RESTART`

Turn order

The story is turn-based and entirely deterministic; there are no dice and no hidden rolls. Each turn runs in the same order:

You give one command.
The command is echoed, then carried out — you move, or handle something, or speak to someone.
The room description or the result of the action is printed.
Anything your action set in motion then happens, in order: discoveries, quest and achievement updates, journal entries, and the arrival or departure of other characters.
The move counter advances and the side panels repaint.

Looking, checking your inventory and consulting the journal, quests, stats, score, hints, transcript or help do not consume a move.

Movement

The island is twenty rooms in five regions: The Open Sea, The Ipecacuanha, The Enclosure, The Island and After the Fire. The WORLD MAP panel charts the region you are standing in, marks your position in brackets, draws the links between rooms you have walked, and leaves rooms you have not yet found as dashes. North is up.

Some ways are shut until the story opens them. A closed exit always explains itself — a barred gate, a locked door, or Montgomery's hand on your arm — and never simply fails. Where a way is locked, the thing that opens it exists somewhere you can already reach.

Scoring

There is no combat system. The revolver is fired exactly twice in the whole story, and once is optional.

Source	Points
Nine story quests	120
Service revolver and boat-hatchet (both needed to finish)	10
Optional discoveries: the newspaper cutting, Moreau's monograph, driving off the Hyena-Swine	20
Total	150

The shortest winning route scores 130 in 69 moves. Full completion — every quest, every achievement, every optional discovery and every room visited — scores 150 in 85 moves. Fourteen achievements are tracked separately from the score.

Winning

You win by leaving. When the enclosure has burned and the Law has stopped holding, a ship's boat comes ashore on the night tide. To go, you must cut her free of the wreckage, fill a water breaker at the one stream on the island, and find something to eat in the ashes. With boat, water and biscuit, USE BOAT ends the story.

Losing

There are three ways to die, and every one of them is described in the room before you can choose it: drinking sea water in the open boat, entering the boiling sulphur pools, and going among the Beast Folk unarmed after the fire. Nothing else on the island will kill you, and there are no timers.

The story cannot become unwinnable. Nothing needed to finish can be destroyed, lost or left behind permanently, and no choice closes off the ending. Optional discoveries cost you points if you miss them, never the game. If the story has ended, RESTART is the only command that will be accepted.

Saving and restarting

SAVE stores a quick save; SAVE dawn stores a named slot.
RESTORE or RESTORE dawn brings a save back.
SAVE MANAGER in the footer lists every slot with its room, score and move count, and can restore or delete each one.
RESTART — or the RESTART button — begins the story again from the open boat, clearing the score, the move count and everything you were carrying. Saved slots are not affected.
TRANSCRIPT shows the whole session and can download it as a text file.

Saves live in this browser on this device, under the key tronsoft_tife_the_island_of_doctor_moreau_save. Clearing site data removes them.

Accessibility

Open ACCESSIBILITY in the footer to choose a profile — Standard, Low Vision, Blind / Screen Reader, Hard of Hearing, Motor Assistance or Cognitive Support — and then adjust any individual setting: text size, narration, captions, visual sound indicators, high contrast, larger controls, reduced typing, simplified layout, reduced motion, contextual hints and screen-reader optimisation. TEST NARRATION reports whether your browser has a usable voice. Preferences are kept on this device.